Frederick Trench, 3rd Baron Ashtown

File:Drawing_in_House_of_Lords.jpg item depicting Ashtown's election to the House of Lords in November 1908]]

Frederick Oliver Trench was the eldest son of Frederick Sydney Charles Trench (heir apparent to the 2nd Lord Ashtown) and Anne Le Poer Trench (eldest daughter of the 3rd Earl of Clancarty of Garbally). At the age of twelve, he became the 3rd Baron Ashtown and inherited a vast estate and reputedly over a million pounds. Some of his County Galway estate was located in Killimordaly. According to valuation records he was landlord for the following townlands: Caraunbeg, Caraunmore, Creevagh, Dooghloon, Gortnaboha and Island. He owned about 22,000 acres in Ireland.[https://archive.org/details/greatlandownerso00bateuoft/page/16/mode/1up The great landowners of Great Britain and Ireland]

Ashtown was educated at Eton College and Magdalen College, Oxford.{{cite news|url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/trench-frederick-oliver-a8634|title=Trench, Frederick Oliver|first=Patrick|last=Maume|work=Dictionary of Irish Biography|year=2009|doi=10.3318/dib.008634.v1}} He was a hard-line Unionist; in 1906–10 he edited a monthly publication, Grievances from Ireland, which denounced all political expressions of Irish nationalism as treasonable. His hunting lodge at Ballymacarbry, County Waterford, was damaged by bombs and arson in 1907 and destroyed by the Irish Republican Army during the War of Independence.{{cite book |url=http://www.dippam.ac.uk/eppi/documents/21182|title=Copies of the Reports of County Inspector Jennings, Royal Irish Constabulary, to the Police Authorities, dated 14th August, 1907, 17th August, 1907, and 14th September, 1907 |series=Command papers |volume=Cd.4010|access-date=23 February 2018}}; {{cite journal |journal=Decies |publisher=Waterford Historical and Archeological Society |title=Land Ownership in Glenahiry in the Eighteenth Century |first=Michael |last=Desmond |volume=61 |date=2005 |url=http://snap.waterfordcoco.ie/collections/ejournals/100775/100775.pdf#page=248 |format=PDF |pages=225–238 : 238|access-date=23 February 2018}}

Ashtown was elected as an Irish representative peer in the House of Lords in November 1908, after an unsuccessful attempt in January 1908. He and Arthur Maxwell, 11th Baron Farnham, received an equal number of votes, with his name ultimately drawn from a glass in according with the procedures of the House. He was declared bankrupt in 1912, but his seat in the House of Lords was not declared vacant until 1915. He was also elected to the Galway County Council in 1911, to "the surprise and dismay of nationalist commentators".

In 1907, a "crude bomb" exploded at Ashtown's residence in Waterford, which he attributed to supporters of the boycott against his properties. However, local officials considered it to have been a publicity stunt orchestrated by Ashtown. He was charged with staging the bombing but was acquitted due to inconclusive evidence.

In 1924, Ashtown was arrested in Dublin and charged with assaulting two schoolboys on separate occasions while travelling on the Dublin and South Eastern Railway. He was held on remand, with bail being refused.{{cite news|url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/178393839|title=Improper Conduct: Charge Against Peer|newspaper=The Telegraph|location=Brisbane, Australia|date=23 April 1924}} He eventually pleaded guilty to common assault and was fined £100 ({{inflation|UK|100|1924|fmt=eq|r=-2}}), with costs of £30 ({{inflation|UK|30|1924|fmt=eq|r=-2}}).{{cite news|url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/181230729|title=Common Assault: Irish Peer Pleads Guilty|newspaper=The Telegraph|location=Brisbane, Australia|date=10 May 1924}} According to the Dictionary of Irish Biography, the assaults were of a sexual nature, although Ashtown justified them as a "misunderstanding of his habit of slapping people on the knee or back while talking to them".

In 1894, Ashtown married Violet Grace Cosby, with whom he had four sons and a daughter. Two of his sons, Frederic Sydney Trench and Arthur Cosby Trench, died in World War I. His eldest at the Somme in 1916 and his youngest of the Spanish flu in 1918. He died on 20 March 1946, aged 77, and was succeeded in the barony by his second son Robert Power Trench.

• January 1908 Irish representative peer election, Ashtown finished runner-up.

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite journal|first=Lewis P.|last=Curtis|title=The Last Gasp of Southern Unionism: Lord Ashtown of Woodlawn|journal=Éire-Ireland|volume=40|number=3|pages=140–188|doi=10.1353/eir.2005.0018}}
• Kieran Jordan (ed.), Kiltullagh Killimordaly As the Centuries Passed: A History from 1500-1900, Kiltullagh/Killimordaly Historical Society (2000), {{ISBN|0-9538684-0-0}}

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{{succession box

| title = Baron Ashtown

| years = 1880–1946

| before = Frederic Trench

| after = Robert Trench

}}

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{{s-bef|before=The Earl of Rosse}}

{{s-ttl|title=Representative peer for Ireland
disqualified due to bankruptcy|years=1908–1915}}

{{s-aft|after=The Lord Crofton}}

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Category:1868 births

Category:1946 deaths

Frederick 3

Category:Politicians from County Galway

Category:People educated at Eton College

Category:Irish representative peers

Frederick

Category:Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford

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